Duke Beat Alabama Without Cooper Flagg Dominating, Which Should Scare Everyone Else
NEWARK, NJ – In what was arguably the most-anticipated matchup of the Elite Eight, it was the Duke Blue Devils winning the East region to advance to the Final Four with an 85-65 win over the Alabama Crimson Tide.
The lights were bright, especially for the two biggest stars in the game – Alabama’s graduate senior Mark Sears and Duke freshman sensation Cooper Flagg. And it was the young gun's squad taking down the veteran-led team in the end.
Sears was coming off one of the best games by any player in the tournament, scoring 34 points on 10 made three-pointers – one shy of tying the NCAA Tournament record set by Jeff Fryer, who had 11 made threes for Loyola Marymount (1990) – in a 110-88 win over BYU.
Flagg entered off a monster game of his own in Newark on Thursday night, scoring 30 points to go along with seven assists, six rebounds, three blocks, and a steal in a Sweet 16 win over Arizona.
Inside Prudential Center, the vast majority of fans donned the blue of Duke University. It was clear when the PA announcer introduced Cooper Flagg before the game that this was a massive pro-Blue Devils crowd.
If it wasn’t clear before the game, it certainly was clear when Flagg hit a three-pointer on the game’s first possession.
While the focus entering the game was on these two offenses, it was the Duke defense that really dominated early. Everyone knows the key to stopping Alabama is preventing its transition game. Still, most teams can’t do it even when they try.
Duke did, though, especially in the first half. The Blue Devils held the Crimson Tide to 37 points in the first stanza and clearly made a concerted effort to not let Mark Sears beat them. The senior guard had just two points (1-4 FG) at the break as the Blue Devils raced out to a 46-37 lead after 20 minutes.
Even though the Alabama Crimson Tide did a good job holding Duke star Cooper Flagg in check, the rest of the Blue Devils stepped up to deliver an Elite Eight victory.
(Lance King/Getty Images)
And while the Crimson Tide made their own concerted effort to keep Cooper Flagg from beating them, they forgot about Kon Knueppel, the other Duke freshman star and potential NBA Draft lottery pick who's been overshadowed by Flagg and everyone else on the floor.
Duke spread its scoring out around its entire starting five, with Knueppel's 21 points leading the way. But every Blue Devils starter scored at least nine, with four of them posting 14+ points.
Mark Sears, meanwhile, ends his college basketball career with a game he'd rather forget. The senior scored six points on 2-12 shooting and turned the ball over five times.
And even without a dominant Flagg (16 points on 6-16 shooting), Duke never trailed in the game. Not for one second.
That's scary for everyone else left in the NCAA Tournament. Duke showed during the ACC Tournament that it could win without Flagg, but that was against teams that didn't make it past the first round of the Big Dance.
The Blue Devils showed against Alabama that they could win – convincingly, no less – against one of the best teams in the country without their best player being at his best.
Look out San Antonio, the Duke Blue Devils are headed to the Final Four. Not just Cooper Flagg, but the entire team.